Bannon, a Brothel, and a “Jew” Lawyer: Roy Moore’s Final Disastrous Rally Reads Like a Bad Joke

The “drain the swamp” rally managed to surpass expectations.

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By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call.

Given the nature of the G.O.P.’s candidate, who was at one time best known for being twice ousted from his judgeship for refusing to comply with court orders, and who has since become infamous for his alleged pattern of sexually preying on teenage girls (a charge he has denied), the Alabama Senate race was always likely to be . . . interesting. But over the past month, it has oscillated wildly between horrifying and absurd as Republican lawmakers have been quizzed over some of Moore’s more incendiary remarks; as Steve Bannon has launched a counter-narrative inspired by Nazi and Soviet propaganda; as the psychologically shattered conservative movement has been forced through yet another existential crisis; and as Donald Trump has concluded that it is far better to vote for an accused child molester than for a "liberal person." The tone was set, then, for Moore’s first rally since The Washington Post exposé, and his last of the campaign cycle. And on Monday night, the "drain the swamp" gathering, which took place in a barn, managed to exceed expectations, serving as a fitting coda to a race even more perturbing than the 2016 presidential election.

This final coming together featured speeches by Bannon, Kayla Moore, and a handful of other fringe far-right luminaries—surrogates whose every anecdote seemed to undermine the very candidate they sought to shore up. Several denied, before a group of supporters and a horde of "fake-news" media, that the charges against Moore carried any legitimacy whatsoever. "While they’re here, [I want to] set the record straight," Kayla Moore said of the media, sporting a glittering red cardigan for the occasion. She went on to describe how, contrary to "fake-news" reports, she and her husband had many black and Jewish friends. "One of our attorneys is a Jew," she said, adding, "We have very close friends that are Jewish, and rabbis, and we also fellowship with them." (Last week, Moore said that liberal advocate George Soros, who is Jewish, is "going to the same place that people who don’t recognize God and morality and accept his salvation are going . . . and that’s not a good place.")

She went on to describe her husband’s appointment of the first black marshal to the Alabama Supreme Court. "We have many friends that are black, and we also fellowship with them in church and in our home," she concluded.

Bannon, the chairman of the rabidly pro-Moore Breitbart News, chained himself to the judge early on, for better or for worse. Committing himself to his role, he led a gleeful round of "lock her up" chants, and seemed to take a shot at the daughter of the president he professed to love. Discussing fellow Republicans’ criticism of Moore, he said, "There is a special place in hell for Republicans who should know better"—a line that echoed Ivanka Trump’s disavowal of Moore, in which she said, "There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children."

But the evening’s most bizarre moment came during a character-witness speech from Bill Staehle, who served with Moore during the Vietnam War. As with Moore’s recent ad in which he sat down for an interview with a 12-year-old girl, Staehle’s stories of the former judge did more to raise eyebrows than it did to reassure the audience of Moore’s moral fiber. As ThinkProgress recounted:

Staehle said that, when he and Moore arrived, they soon realized the man had taken them to a brothel. The third man, Staehle suggested, essentially tricked them. "I could tell you what I saw, but I don’t want to," Staehle said mischievously.

"There were certainly pretty girls. And they were girls. They were young. Some were very young," Staehle acknowledged. But according to Staehle, Moore was shocked by what he saw. "We shouldn’t be here, I’m leaving," Moore said, according to Staehle.

They asked the third man to leave with them, but he didn’t want to. So Staehle and Moore took his Jeep and left him there all night with sex workers, who they agreed were underage. The man returned to base the next morning on the back of a motorcycle, Staehle said with a grin.

When Moore himself addressed the crowd, he remarked that he had flown the coop over the weekend because he had something much more important to do than answer reporters’ probing questions: "Take my wife and relax at West Point," a brief reprieve from what he alternately characterized as "this mess" and an "odd" campaign.

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